Welcome to Sinnoh! The
slowest Pokémon region of them all!
Generation IV is the first
generation of Pokémon for the mega popular Nintendo DS, the first console to
host two generations (Nintendo can consider the Game Boy and Game Boy Colour
the same thing all they like but they’re not are they?) and…it wasn’t a good
start, but it got better. The Generation began with Pokémon Diamond Version and Pokémon
Pearl Version and their low framerate and included their ‘third version’ Pokémon Platinum Version which fixed
that low framerate and the excellent Generation 2 remakes Pokémon HeartGold Version and
Pokémon SoulSilver Version which came with, of all things, an award-winning
pedometer with the Pokéwalker (plus of course various spin-offs).
With the introduction of online
battling and ‘the Physical/Special split’ - which changed the viability of
Pokémon in the competitive scene by individually categorizing moves as a
Physical move or Special move rather than having all moves from the same Type
all be Physical or Special – this is the generation where the Pokémon
competitive gaming scene really took off so competitive gamers are quite fond
of this generation - pity I’m not a competitive gamer. I didn’t like the
Generation from the start, the art-style for the Pokémon had gone even further
into wherever it ended up in Generation III and that put me off before Diamond
& Pearl came out, then the games were filled with confusing maps with some
bogged down with weather effects that slowed an already slow game. The only
reason I can’t say this is my least favourite generation is because a) Platinum
fixed all of those issues and 2) HeartGold & SoulSilver are TERRIFIC.
Anyway fun fact: I actually wasn’t going to write these
in order starting with Generation 1 and I actually wrote Generation 4 first
because it was shortest, a good chunk of the new Pokémon were
cross-generational evolutions and would be covered in Generations 1-3’s
reviews, so I could skip them. It was a perfect plan until I got to the
round-up and realised I couldn’t do it because I hadn’t covered all the
Pokémon. Oops. This is the re-written versions of those.
Right, lets get on with it.
Gen 4’s starters are VERY
derivative of Gen 1’s and their grass starter line is the most so – why, it’s
derivative of two lines! We have shelled animals everyone mixes up with turtles
that become extremely badass armoured tank monsters (Squirtle line) that are
also quadrupedal green non-mammals with a plant on their tops that blossom as
it evolves (Bulbasaur). That’s pretty shit really and everyone at Game Freak
should feel completely ashamed of the complete lack of fucking effort that was
put in when figuring out to go about the concept of ‘grass tortoise’. However I
adore this line and do so solely because it mixed tortoises and ankylosaurs and
ends up with you having a Pokémon that’s an Ankylosaur Island at your command.
Ankylosaurs are my favourite dinosaurs, bite me.
Torterra is magnificent; I
could have not hoped for a better Ankylosaur in Pokémon: it has a fucking
ecosystem on its back! Why? well World Turtles are REALLY common in myths
around the world – India, China, North America, Discworld, they all have them,
one was in Avatar: the Last Airbender
too, and surely you’ve heard about the old woman and the ‘turtles all the way
down’ thing? It’s almost Schrodinger’s Cat level obnoxiously common with
pseudo-intellectuals haunting shit student bars and interweb comment sections!
I’m not going into it, Google ‘turtles all the way down’ if you wanna known,
after the inevitable Ninja Turtle incest porn you’ll get what you’re looking
for. As for why it’s a tortoise not a turtle, other than people mix them up all
the time (including the team that named these ‘mons in English) it’s probably
basd on the Black Tortoise, which is Chinese is origin but one of the guardians
of Kyoto in Japan. I love this sort of shit, the sheer amount of things that
Pokémon designs pull together that make its design, typing and special
abilities make so much sense, from zoology to mythology to industry to pop
culture, I like it even more when it’s attached to a
mean-as-fuck-but-still-lovable Ankylosaurtoise.
I could do without Turtwig’s
feet markings, which manage to scream both ‘things I hate about Gen 3’s deigns’
and things ‘I hate about Gen 4’s designs’ but everywhere else he’s golden and
it seems pretty harsh (even for me) to hate on a tortoise so cute because of
his yellow feet. , he’s my least favourite of the three but then he’s not an
Ankylosaur. [4] Grotle on the other hand IS and he’s an akylosaur that looks
like a statue and/or weaponry from some ancient culture without being too gaudy
- the bushes are a bit naff though. I get
the whole ‘camouflage’ thing and I bet they’re a lot more useful in a lot more
situations than Ivysaur’s bud but that’s kind of why they’re naff – bushes are
everywhere and they’re boring, not even strapping them to an Akylosaurtoise
that looks like a Spartan’s shield can stop them from being boring and Grotle
suffers from it, like he’s trying to be cool but completely failing because
bushes are in no objective or subjective way cool.
Continuing on with our
super derivative Starters, it’s ‘What if Charmander was a Monkey’ and poor
Chimchar really is a step down in creativity from Mankey, Primape and Aipom
ain’t he? I mean he’s just a cartoon monkey with fire bits attached, but then
Charmander’s just a cartoon lizard with fire bits attached.... What Chimchar is
is a) adorably cute 2) adorably happy c) adorably dopey - so it’s cool, it’s
just not very original compared to its predecessors.
The more I look at
Infernape though the more I like it (I also really like its name) it’s a very
busy design but then so is Torterrera, and just as Torterra’s level of detail
is acceptable because it’s armour, Monferno’s detail is acceptable because
it’s, well, bling. More modern Pokemn can fall into the trap of over-designed
but here it makes sense: all monkeys designed by the Japanese MUST recall the
monkey magic of Son Goku, their version of the Monkey King from Journey to the
West (and I’m pleasantly surprised Infernape didn’t end up looking like SonSon
on fire - and greatly appreciate this,
I’m so fucking sick of Journey to the West, really Japan: enough) Infernape is
no different, and likely inspired by Hanuman the Hindu god too, so it makes
perfect sense that a monkey with Chinese, kingly and Hindu God aspirations
would be have a lot of swirly gold accents, because swirly gold shit is a sign
of utter fanciness and godliness for all three of those things. it makes sense,
it makes it look suitably ‘Chinese’ or ‘Hindu God’ to ignorant spods in other
countries and makes it look damn spiffy.
Monferno is out first
clear-cut case of THAT ONE THING Syndrome in this generation. Where
everything’s fine except THAT ONE THING. I suppose it could also be called THAT
FUCKING SEASHELL BIKINI Syndrome but I think more people would assume I’m
bashing on Ariel, and why would I do that? I mean yeah, she sold her soul for a
vagina, but she’s cute. Monferno is not cute, nor is it a tortoise, so it’s not
getting away with it. Monfero’s face is just awkward, not the colours - I get
why they’re there, but the whole segmented design of it and how those interact
and in what order they fall, the whole thing would be far, FAR better if the
blue brow hung over the eyes, sometimes it IS drawn like this (not by Sugimori
though so I’m taking it to be erroneous when it is) and it just makes the
monkey so much more pleasing to my eye:
It’s THAT ONE THING that’s
making Monferno get a shit score. We will be seeing this again I don’t doubt.
Penguins are my favourite
animal. I will not be restrained.
IT TOOK FOUR GENERATIONS
BUT WE FINALLY GOT A PENGUIN AND IT’S THE CUTEST FUCKING THING THE POKEVERSE
HAS EVER HAD THE JOY TO EXPERIENCE! IT IS THE FUCKING MORNING SUN AFTER THE
DARK NIGHT OF CUTE POKEMON! IT IS GLORIOUS AND BEYOND REPROACH! IT DOESN’T HAVE
A FUCKING BOWTIE BUT INSTEAD SOMETHING THAT RECALLS A BOWTIE BUT REALLY ISN’T!
IT EVOLVES INTO THE KING OF SAMURAIS! IT DOESN’T HAVE THE DESIGN ISSUES THAT A
LOAD OF GEN 4 AND GEN 3 POKEMON HAVE! SOMEONE ACTUALLY SHOWED RETRAINT! IT IS
JUST WHAT I WANTED!
Pity it evolves into
Prinpulp. Prinplup is just so…so…bleh. I’m trying to put into words what’s
wrong with it and have come up with this: a design that should have been left
in the sketch book, sometimes you design something and it doesn’t work, it’s
just the way it is, everything you were trying for doesn’t happen, it’s not bad
per say, just not right, a failure, something to work from or redesign when
your creative mojo is firing on all four cylinders rather than running on
fumes. That’s what Prinplup is, it’s the design that didn’t work and should
have been redesign or abandoned to refine and improve everything on it.
Midvolution Syndrome at its most blatant.
Meanwhile Emploen is
fucking boss. I do think that I would have preferred if it had been entirely
armoured or armoured from the neck down but instead we have a penguin that’s
been, well, sharpened, it’s kinda a penguin knife rather than a penguin knight
and I’m so okay with that. I find the wing claws completely unnecessary but
they’re exceptionally unobtrusive so whatever.
Jesus, two gold six scores in the Starters alone, I thought I didn't like this gen?
tanx
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